Connect, Like, Share

The age of digitisation has helped memories stay afloat in our mind in many ways than one... be it sharing our pictures on Facebook, Instagram, or just sharing them through Whatsapp. It has all become so easy and we truely stay connected by keeping our dear ones updated. Let's peep into the past, when cameras with film rolls were used... and those rolls had to be taken to the studios to get washed. And then came the age of digital point and shoot cameras with memory slots; SLRs were extensively used by professional photographers. However, in this day and age, while the number of SLRs with the masses is increasing, so is the camera quality in our handy cell phones.

Earlier the platform of sharing memories through photographers was occasional, when we met our family and relatives. Physical albums were maintained and a description was shared with each flip in the page of album. Physical albums are a passe now. Not to miss, the traditional photo album acted as a medium to sit together and look at pictures and go back into the memory lane and discuss extensively about each event that took place when the picture was captured.

What is it that we, in the past paced and digitised world, really do to share our memories today? Well, we just click and upload. The word rapid falls short in explaining the pace at which times are changing. The rate of change is exponential!

With changing times, not only cameras, there has been a rapid change in telephone technology, too- from traditional land lines to the basic push button cell phones and then smart phones and then, the rather evolved smart phones that we are using today. In this age, smart phones have become a medium of both communication and entertainment. From a common device at home, it has become a 'personal device'. The phone is being used extensively to click and upload pictures at a rapid pace.

According to the information available on the internet, in 2014, Mary Meeker's annual internet Trends report suggested that people uploaded an average of 1.8 billion digital images every single day. That's 657 billion photos per year! Another way to think about it is that in every two minutes, people take more photos than they ever existed in the last 150 years collectively!

... Research shows that people who spend more time on Facebook suffer from higher rates of depression than people who don't. 'Likes and shares' today has becone the means to prove how 'rich' we are, and not necessarily how 'happy' we are. A terrible misunderstanding has spread- it seems we've come to believe that the amount of 'likes' we get on social media determines how likable we actually are as a person.

... After all why is it that people crave for 'likes' or approvals from others? To know furthermore read the complete article in the Feb'17 edition of English Akhand Gyan Monthly Magazine.